It sure sounds like Goldman Sachs bond trader Fabrice Tourre knew exactly what he was doing.
In a series of 2007 emails released over the weekend by Goldman Sachs, Tourre, who was charged earlier this month in the SEC’s civil fraud case against Goldman, comes across as a sly dealer of financial products that he seemed to know were ticking time bombs — bragging about selling them to a “widow and orphans” — but also as someone ethically conflicted about doing so.Tourre, along with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Daniel Sparks, a former head of the mortgages department, and a number of other Goldman executives are expected to testify tomorrow before Sen. Carl Levin’s (D-MI) Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Blankfein is expected to deny betting against mortgages — although emails released by Levin over the weekend appear to show that the investment bank knowingly made money betting against the mortgage market — and mortgage securities that it was selling to investors.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=127375